Listen to LBC London News

Facts and stats

The station launched on 6th October 1994 as London News 97.3, which was London's first and only rolling news radio station, replacing LBC Newstalk, the latter who lost their licence to Reuters and acquired LBC pre-launch. It later became News 97.3 and News Direct 97.3.

In 1996, a new consortium 'London News Radio' which included GWR and the Daily Mail and General Trust acquired News Direct and its sister station Newstalk 1152 and moved to ITN's HQ in Gray's Inn Road, which led to another relaunch as ITN News Direct 97.3, which had a rolling wheel of news, weather, sport and business.

In 2002, London News Radio sold their two stations to Chrysalis Radio and applied to switch the frequencies of News Direct (the 'ITN' brand was dropped) and sister AM station LBC (which returned in 1996). This was approved and on 24th December 2002, a combined LBC News service launched on 97.3 FM and 1152 AM.

In early 2003, LBC News moved permanently to 1152 AM, Global Radio acquired Chrysalis Radio and LBC News 1152 later dropped some live programming from the back half hour and reduced their broadcast hours to 7am-7pm weekdays, 7am-6pm Saturday and 7am-5pm on Sunday.

The station relaunched as LBC London News in 2015, with live rolling news at the times above at other times simulcasting LBC.

Other information

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